Every day, Lauren Kavanaugh relives her past and the torture she endured, she said on the Dr. Phil show.

Editor's note: This story was originally published in January, when the episodes first aired. It has been republished in conjunction with the two-part series re-airing July 19 and 20.

Every day, Lauren Kavanaugh, who became known as "the girl in the closet," relives the torture and abuse she lived through from ages 2 to 8, she said in an appearance this week on Dr. Phil.

It has been 15 years since Kavanaugh was rescued from the filthy 4-by-9 closet in her family's mobile home in Hutchins. When police found her she weighed 25.6 pounds and had been starved, tortured and repeatedly sexually abused.

Lauren Kavanaugh pictured on December 23, 2013 at her home in Canton.(Sarah Hoffman / Staff Photographer)

"Sometimes I have flashbacks about my past, my childhood. Sometimes when I have flashbacks, it's of [my parents] beating me," she said, adding that the nightmares and night terrors are worse because she can't wake up.

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She doesn't like the dark and prefers to sleep during the day. Sometimes she goes to sleep on the floor of her closet, others days she wakes up and doesn't know how she got in there.

"It's safe," she told Dr. Phil McGraw.

Kavanaugh grew up with five siblings in the house. Her sister, Blake Strohl, who is three years older, knew something was wrong with the way she was treated as a child but was too afraid of her mother to say anything.

"My parents would refer to Lauren as 'that girl', 'the problem' or 'it,'" Strohl told McGraw. "My brothers and sisters and I were completely brainwashed into thinking Lauren deserved to be in the closet."

She said they could smell the closet from her parents' bedroom and could hear Kavanaugh's screams. Once after sneaking her sister a tub of butter, her parents pushed a dresser up against the closet door to keep anyone from opening it.

"I didn't have the resources because none of us were in school. Our family wasn't around. I was scared that they might do it to me or that it might make things worse," Strohl said.

She told McGraw she feels guilty every day for letting her sister down.

In a photo of Lauren taken at Children's Medical Center Dallas after her rescue on June 11, 2001, she had the skeletal look of a Holocaust survivor. She was no bigger than a 2-year-old, and hers was the worst case of child abuse in the hospital's history. She also had teeth missing and genital abnormalities, and her body was trying to shut down. ((Courtesy Photo))

"I always tell myself that there's something I could have done. I always feel responsible because I worked so hard to take care of the other kids, but there was nothing I could do for her," she said.

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Kavanaugh said she's trying to have a relationship with Strohl, but that it will take a lot to earn her trust.

"I hardly have any friends because I'm very guarded, and I'm always pushing people away," she told McGraw. "I get really lonely a lot of times because I feel like I have no one."

Her mother, Barbara Atkinson, and stepfather Kenneth Atkinson, are serving life sentences for felony injury to a child. They will be eligible for parole in 2031.

Kavanaugh and Strohl have both refused contact with the Atkinsons.

"I would put them where I was," Kavanaugh said. "I want them to suffer."

1/6Several days after Lauren's rescue in June 2001, authorities took this photo of the closet where she was held prisoner inside the Hutchins mobile home of Barbara and Kenneth Atkinson. (Courtesy Photo)

2/6The door to the closet, shown in a law enforcement photo.

3/6Soiled carpet and items on the right side of the closet.

4/6There was about an inch crack under the closet door, which provided a sliver of light and Lauren's hope for escape.

5/6There was about an inch crack under the closet door, which provided a sliver of light and Lauren's hope for escape.

6/6Kenneth Atkinson, left, and Barbara Atkinson on the day of their arrests, June 12, 2001. Lauren was rescued the previous night from their trailer in Hutchins.

After she was rescued, Lauren was adopted by Sabrina and Bill Kavanaugh. They had adopted her at birth but later lost custody to her biological mother on a legal technicality.

Despite years of continued hardship and struggle, Kavanaugh graduated from Eustace High School in 2013 and enrolled at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens.

She has since graduated, and has a girlfriend, Janae Merrill.

"I can't touch Lauren when she's having a night terror," Merrill told McGraw. "If you do, she will hurt you."

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Lauren Kavanaugh (right) teases her girlfriend Janae Merrill at the recreation center at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas on May 2, 2014.(Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

"Before we go to bed, I normally put everything away that's sharp," she said. "I literally have to baby-proof the house."

McGraw said it bothers him that Kavanaugh thinks that her abuse and neglect was her fault.

"There's nothing you could've done to change it," he said. "That kind of warped values, that kind of sick functioning comes from a broken person and it comes from the inside out."

To try to help her regain control of her life, the show offered to send Kavanaugh to a clinical treatment facility in California, and she accepted. Producers also secured a one-bedroom apartment in Denton where she can live rent-free for a year and consulting with a Dallas recruiting and job placement firm.

Claire Cardona, Breaking News Producer. Claire joined The Dallas Morning News as an intern in 2012. She now writes about crime, other breaking news and the Dallas Zoo. She grew up in New Orleans and graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin.